The difference between traditional braille embossing and digital braille printing embossing tactile ergonomics

Abstract

Preparation of printed material for visually impaired presents a special field in the printing and graphic industry. Until recently embossing has been the leading technology for printing braille but in the last years UV ink-jet and digital printing are taking their share in the field. This research paper will present the difference between ergonomics and usability with both traditional braille embossing and digital printing embossing by inks so the visually impaired people successfully can recognize them easily, showing which one will be much easier to those people. By using set of parameters helping the author comparing each other, braille dot as well as its cells, their heights, diameter, distance between them. Those parameters helping the accessible according to users requirements, to facilitate the reading, identification and discriminability of the information (text, set of points, illustrations … etc) for the visually impaired peopleThe research paper also had to deal with this actions thanks to the theoretical and practical methodological content using the ‘design for all’ for both visually impaired and normal people everyday print products, The research paper adopted the method of work and details of some steps recommended by ISO standards specifications to deal with the visually impaired people as a method of obtaining the results of the research after analyzing the ergonomics questionnaire that applied on some braille users in different age stages because of its impact on their various absorptive and skill capabilities and whose effect was subsequently observed on reading texts and illustration content has been included in the results and recommendations extract.

Keywords

• digital printing; ergonomics; aesthetic design; visually impaired people; education